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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473936">Sisyphus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoswellSmokingWoman/pseuds/RoswellSmokingWoman'>RoswellSmokingWoman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bottom Hannibal Lecter, BottomHanniBonanza, Divorce, First Time, Hannibal knows he can't replace Will, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other man - Freeform, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Top Will Graham</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:27:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoswellSmokingWoman/pseuds/RoswellSmokingWoman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I feel like Sisyphus, traveling up the hill with you. But I can never savor the top. I’m always sent back down. You sent me down, Hannibal.”</p><p>“You demanded punishment.”</p><p>“You enjoy giving punishment,” Will scoffs. “It isn’t the same. I wanted direction. If we died, it would have been righteously.”</p><p>Will they ever be able to remain at the top?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Molly Graham</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sisyphus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>              Will hadn’t spoken since he’d returned home. Wally’s away with a friend until Molly can sort this out. Their marriage out. But there’s no sorting to do. When she looks at him, she knows it’s not a matter of if but when they’ll finally fall apart. She doesn’t know if she wants them to. Maybe with the gentle touch a time, she could nurture him back into their old lives. The thought is laughable.</p><p>              Molly keeps her distance, but she knows that she can’t hold onto the image of the man she thought she’d known. There’s longing there, in the empty pit of her chest where Will used to be. It isn’t difficult to realize that a place in her heart was reserved for a man that never quite existed, a man maybe constructed for her sake alone. This is Will now, who he’d always been—a shaking, boiling mess of a creature with crimson glimmering just underneath the milky black sheath of his pupils. How hadn’t she seen it before?</p><p>              The first touch of her hand on his shoulder is unwelcomed by Will who jolts away and cocks his head back to see her. “<em>This is</em> <em>wrong,” </em>his eyes speak. Molly stands behind him, silently pleading for his softer side to peek through. There are only edges now, each one sharpened by the jagged rocks of the cliffside from which he fell. Each edge cuts her daily, but she’s willing to endure them all—if only he could come back to her.</p><p>              Will stands from the chair. Molly gives in.</p><p>              “Why did you come back?”  </p><p>              “I can leave,” Will responds, voice cracking from disuse.  </p><p>              “You want him.” Molly reaches out, grabbing his shoulder tighter. She needs a confession to remove the weight sitting on her chest. A confession to set her free. “You want Hannibal.”</p><p>              It’s all Will needs to send him out the door.</p><p>              Weeks after the fall, they still search for the body by the cliffside, but it’s never found. Will knows better than to expect for the search team to turn up with something. He’s left shattered. The fuzzy recollection of that night embedded into his brain has Hannibal dragging him to shore and staring at him like God, mulling over his fate, and leaving him there to bleed.</p><p>              Abandoned, Will stands on the lawn as car lights flicker on, illuminating the guilt on his skin—that he flung himself and Hannibal over with the intent of murder-suicide. Unlike their oft-spoken imagined god, Hannibal is merciless. Hannibal believes in punishment, and loneliness is Will’s—even if it means that Hannibal too must suffer that same loneliness.</p><p>              The eye of the FBI is stuck on him, always watching. He can’t leave, even if he wants to. There are too many unanswered questions—too much blame to push onto his shoulders. He should carry it; it’s his blame. But he feels blameless in his human nature, in submitting to something so base. Defeated, Will lurches back into the home. Molly is no longer inside, and he doesn’t expect to see her again after today. They’ve said more than enough to know that this is over.</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p>             </p><p>              The rumble of the crowd outside the courthouse slips into Will’s eardrums like cacophonous booms. He should know to look away, but his eyes wander through the crowd with masochistic intent—to spy how the sea of irises light aflame when they find his face. They burn holes into his skin until he’s hollowed out and shame slips from the holes.  </p><p>              In the car ride, he realizes those eyes can’t replace the brand of loathing he requires that comes from one person, who could be both anywhere and here. And he is here, in Will’s mind palace, a reflection of the wendigo whose eyes bore into Will. It’s not enough.</p><p>              He parks his car in front of his home in Maine where Freddie Lounds waits on the porch, faux fur cheetah print jacket clinging to her lithe frame. She walks down the porch steps, smirking at Will as he exits the car.</p><p>              “Good day in court, Will?”</p><p>              “For whom?”</p><p>              “Exactly.” Freddie stands inches away from Will now, and she swears she can smell blood on his breath, see red in the pink of his gums peeking out from his smile. “They let the beast roam free.”</p><p>              “Careful, Freddie—he bites.”</p><p>              Will walks past Freddie, shoulder brushing against hers. It occurs to him that the home is different now. Turning, he finds his lawn empty, the FBI finally gone. He waves Freddie goodbye, smiling.</p><p>              “This is the last we’re going to see each other. Hope you’ll find someone new to write about.”</p><p>              She opens her mouth to retort, but Will disappears into the home faster than she can find the words to say. Will Graham would slip away into obscurity then—to find Hannibal or to be alone—and Freddie could never find Will, potentially. But who else could she dig into if not Will? She’d never entertained the option, before.</p><p>             </p><p>****</p><p>              Drenched in the sweat of fevered dreams, Will moans out in his sleep, screaming out Hannibal’s name until his throat is run raw unconsciously. He is lost deep in the labyrinth of his mind palace, crawling on his hands and knees through the narrow hallway which leads to the room where he keeps Hannibal locked away. Will had believed it would be better if he made it difficult to visit those memories. Nevertheless, his efforts to find Hannibal don’t cease. The door to their room is opened with a creek, Hannibal’s foreboding office unveiled.</p><p>              He sits in his chair, sipping red wine from a glass. His lips are stained pink, calling to Will wantonly. Beneath his pants, Will’s cock twitches in desperation. This man is murder and beauty, life and death, begging to be had by Will.</p><p>              “Back already?” Hannibal asks, smiling coyly.</p><p>              “I feel like Sisyphus, traveling up the hill with you. But I can never savor the top. I’m always sent back down. You sent me down.”</p><p>              “You demanded punishment.”</p><p>              “You enjoy giving punishment,” Will scoffs. “It isn’t the same. I wanted direction. If we died, it would have been righteously.”</p><p>              “But we lived. Had you thought about what would happen then?”</p><p>              “You let us fall, Hannibal.”</p><p>              “I did.” Hannibal sighs into his wine, his breath fogging up the glass. “I couldn’t resist you then. I still can’t.”</p><p>              Will’s eyes open to the dawn breaking outside his window, sunlight escaping through the crack in the curtain. He sits up in bed, in his rustic room, with no wine or smell of potpourri. He is misplaced in the universe, his home on another shore.</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p> </p><p>              The roads of Florence are a familiar ghost beneath the soles of his shoes. The brick pathways make Will’s feet hurt as he wanders through the city, searching for the faintest sign of Hannibal’s presence. This is Will’s only chance. He won’t give himself another. If he doesn’t find Hannibal here, he would have to wait for Hannibal to find him instead.</p><p>              Sore, Will returns to his apartment at nightfall. It’s a shabby single room with a wood-burning stove in the kitchen that’s nearly a century old. The apartment came furnished with delicate floral furniture—it’s not his taste, but it’s a change of pace from the life he left behind in Maine.</p><p>              Despite himself, Will stays awake in bed until the early hours of the morning. He stares at the phone on the nightstand, feeling the seconds tick away. It should be late enough by now. She should be at home. Will picks up the phone, dialing the number quickly.</p><p>              Before he can change his mind, he hears her voice. “Hello?”</p><p>              “Molly,” Will whispers.</p><p>              “I don’t have anything to say to you.”</p><p>              Will pauses, twirling his finger around the phone cord. “I wanted to be him for you, but that—that was before everything. I signed the papers before I left, so you could be free… You didn’t testify against me in court.”</p><p>              “U.S. law doesn’t require you to testify against your spouse. In any case, I couldn’t,” Molly hesitates—her breath held as she thinks. Maybe she wants to hang up the phone. “You said you left, Will. Where are you?”</p><p>              “Alone,” Will breathes, feeling hot tears dribble down his cheeks. His breathing becomes labored as he holds back sobs.</p><p>              “You don’t have to be. Stay safe. Goodbye, Will.”</p><p>              The line goes dead.</p><p>****</p><p>              Hannibal stirs in bed, feet rubbing up against skin. He growls, taking his lover into his arms and inhaling the scent on his skin—aftershave with a ship on the bottle. Still under the thick blanket of sleep, Hannibal presses kisses into the man’s shoulder.</p><p>              “Having a good dream, love?” the man asks.</p><p>              Realizing that it isn’t Will’s voice, Hannibal wakes fully. The aftershave was a present. It’s not him, after all. “I was.”</p><p>              “I could help make it come true.”</p><p>              Hannibal looks over his shoulder, finding the sun rising over the horizon through the window. “I’m late for work. We’ll meet at the usual place for lunch?”</p><p>              “Of course.”</p><p>              As he dresses for work, Hannibal realizes that he’d spent too much time in Italy. It no longer rouses the same awe from him. His eyes no longer dart from building to building, spying the intricate details in the city’s architecture. Palermo is changed forever, he knows. On his way to work, he passes by the chapel, stopping to consider entering it alone but ultimately continuing to his lecture at the University of Catania. </p><p>             </p><p>****</p><p> </p><p>              Giovanni waits for Hannibal, sitting on the step and waving at him when he sees Hannibal pass by. Hesitantly, Hannibal draws Giovanni in for a kiss, growling softly. Growling as he did with Alana, and many others before her. And like each of them, Giovanni is tamed by the sound and entranced into a state of false security. Hannibal’s hands who used to vibrate with pleasure remain still today. His games eventually end the same way—all games but one.</p><p>              “Shall we?” Giovanni asks.</p><p>              Hannibal stares past his shoulders to spy the chapel where his heart had once been laid bare. It’s empty now, but the fantom of it still lingers inside beating softly. If he closes his eyes, he swears he can hear its sounds on the incensed breath of the chapel. It calls to him today in strangled tones, extracting the words from his unwilling mouth.</p><p>              “I thought we could see the chapel first.”</p><p>              Giovanni laughs, placing his hand in the small of Hannibal’s back. “Whatever you wish.”</p><p>              Hannibal’s feet guide him slowly up the stairs, Giovanni following closely behind. At the doorway, Hannibal’s hand lingers on the door handle, thumb gliding over bronze coated with thorns. This is his sacrifice, heart pumping blood through his veins and into his fingers to be left on the chapel. Opening the door, Hannibal’s foot collides with the marble floor. The scent of candles burning enter his nostrils and fill his lungs. Inside, Giovanni disappears.</p><p>              Alone, Hannibal walks to the alter—always looking forwards. At the altar, Hannibal looks upwards, the light of the setting sun entering his eyes. He inhales, the scent of hunger-tinged aftershave lingering in the chapel. Forbidden tears fall from his eyes, dribbling down his cheeks. In the silence, his tears make a splash against the floor.</p><p>              Will stands next to him, in his mind—a vision grabbing ahold of his hand as they become immortalized in this room, together. Hannibal swallows thickly, knowing that he can’t stand here forever, and he will have to let go yet another time. To live another day without the only person who he could ever allow to crawl into his soul and know him. But he doesn’t let go. He can’t. A hand brushes up against his shoulder, and Will smiles goodbye as he dissipates into the air.</p><p>              “Is everything all right?”</p><p>              Hannibal smiles. “Yes.”</p><p>              Giovanni leans in, pressing a kiss onto his lips. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p> </p><p>              Will watches from afar, as Hannibal leans into another man, lips landing softly, hand wrapping around his waist—he can’t help but choke through the pain and watch every moment. Hannibal finally found, Will rolls down the hill again. Is this the only possible outcome for them? This eternal repetition? He stands still, meters away from the two men, waiting.</p><p>              When Hannibal finally turns, he stops in his tracks, gasping softly. Will endures the splintering of his heart as he walks towards them, taking Hannibal into his arms and pressing a kiss into his lips. This is the consummation of the bond they’d formed on the night by the cliffside where they became united by the thick tie of dragon’s blood. Giovanni watches as Hannibal leans into the kiss, closing his eyes. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t argue. He leaves the two men to their affair; he knows he has no place to compete. This is why Hannibal urged them here today, guided by some inexplicable force.</p><p>              Will and Hannibal tumble through the streets of Palermo, aching with every touch trying to make up for lost time—there are no words they need to say. Their bodies propel them towards Hannibal’s home, into his bed. Limbs entangling, Will bites into Hannibal’s flesh watching as it turns from pink to blue.</p><p>              “You left me,” Will whispers as he places his hands around Hannibal’s neck.</p><p>              “You chose death at your first breath in your new life. Death for you and the one who gave life to you.”</p><p>              “And I did it with my hands.” Will pauses, lips inches away from Hannibal’s ear. “As promised.”</p><p>              Hannibal takes Will’s hand and kisses the back of it tenderly, licking up Will’s index finger to the fingertip and then wrapping his mouth around the digit, sucking. His tongue moves around Will’s finger, desperately showing how he could take care of Will.</p><p>              But Will doesn’t want to be taken care of. At this moment, he wants to become the beast that will ravage Hannibal, tear him apart limb from limb, and feel the memory like an echo of blood on his tongue. Will would consume him, every inch of Hannibal’s flesh, torn apart by Will’s teeth. Suddenly, Hannibal is on his stomach, looking at the floor as Will removes Hannibal’s pants with a violent tug. Hannibal spins around, pinning Will against the headboard and biting down on his lips.</p><p>              “Do you want to use your hands again?” Hannibal rasps, nibbling down Will’s neck.</p><p>              “I want all of you under my hands, my mouth, my body.”</p><p>              Hannibal’s eyes soften, looking at the bloodlust staining Will’s eyes. Relenting, he presses a tender kiss into Will’s lips before lying down, waiting for Will to make the next move. Only Will could have him like this, submitting.</p><p>              “Take me,” Hannibal exhales.</p><p>              Stealing Hannibal’s breath, Will enters Hannibal’s aching hole. Groaning, he thrusts in slowly, feeling every crevice of Hannibal. Lost in the moment, Will forgets to breathe but he becomes nourished by the lifeforce eked out of each of Hannibal’s breaths. Hannibal’s life becomes Will’s alone as they reach the brink, Hannibal cumming with an impassioned shriek from the ecstasy they share.  </p><p>              They lay in the bed, hours ticking by as they watch each other, hands exploring each other in ways they never allowed themselves too. Will examines Hannibal in awe of the lines etched by time on his face. How much he’d changed in the time they’d spent apart. But they would not spend any more time apart—it isn’t an option after today. As Sisyphus, Will finally savors the top.  </p>
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